Author of the acclaimed work Iceberg Risk: An Adventure in Portfolio Theory, Kent Osband argues that uncertainty is central rather than marginal to finance. Markets don't trade mainly on changes in risk. They trade on changes in beliefs about risk, and in the process, markets unite, stretch, and...

Standard financial stress tests are ad hoc. They offer no guidance on how to select the target stress levels, how to adjust for randomness within crisis, or how to integrate the results with other risk measures. The VarGamma metric introduced by Osband (2013) offers an appealing alternative. It...

Since borrowers want minimal pressure to repay early while depositors want minimal constraints on withdrawals, banks typically borrow short to lend long. This is known as duration mismatch. To mitigate the risks, banks are required to hold capital buffers, which are intended to cover all losses...

Credit grades are ordinal measures of default risk that are used to rank the relative creditworthiness of different borrowers rather than the relative safety of different environments. They are assigned by specialized rating agencies, which face short-term pressures to fudge their rankings and...

Author of the acclaimed work Iceberg Risk: An Adventure in Portfolio Theory, Kent Osband argues that uncertainty is central rather than marginal to finance. Markets don't trade mainly on changes in risk. They trade on changes in beliefs about risk. In the process, markets unite, stretch, and...